There is no average day here. Every day is its own adventure-its own book with a different ending each night. My roommate, Tamara, and I talk about the importance of hoping and not expecting anything here. If you want to get all ten things done on your list, you better hope for it and not expect it. If you want to take a hot shower after your workout, you better hope for it and not expect it. If you want to drink coffee in the morning, you better hope the power is on for the hot water and not expect it. If you want there to be cheese at your favorite restaurant, you better hope for it and not expect it. That being said, I will do my best to explain to you what my life is like here.

I live on a gated and guarded compound. There are two houses in the compound. One is for the casework intern, Tamara, the community relations fellow, Amanda, and I. We are the only IJM office that is required to live together in a house chosen by IJM because of safety reasons. The Allens live in the other house on the compound. John Allen is the professional development fellow in the office. Peace Corps people lived in the house before the Allens. This is the first time the compound has been entirely IJM.

We all walk to work each morning (sometimes together, sometimes separately). It takes us approximately 7 minutes to get to the office from our houses. If it’s raining, you have to either put on your gum boots (rain boots) or brave the muddy orange dirt roads in your flats. We are always sweating by the time we get to the office, though, regardless of the current weather. On a sunny and cool(er) day, it is easier to enjoy the beautiful walk that it is.

I get to the office and greet everyone, asking them how their nights were and how their children are doing. Tamara and I make coffee in the little French press and I make my oatmeal. I prep my boss, Will, for the meetings and things we have to do for that day and then go to my desk to answer some emails. My desk is right at the front when you walk into the office, so I get to say good morning to everyone.

At 8:30 I ring the bell for stillness, which is a time where you can spend 30 minutes with God quietly at your desk and prepare your heart for the day and for the heartbreak and injustice we are entrenched in on a daily basis. I ring the bell again at 9 to signal the end of stillness and the beginning of devotion. Each department leads on a different day. Will, John and I are a team and we have Mondays and switch off. Will will pick a staff member to pray for, John focuses on a time of reflection and I pick one of our clients to tell the story of/pray for. Each time of devotion starts off with two songs (typically one in Acholi and one in English), the leader does what he or she has planned for the morning and then we go into prayers and praises and then announcements. At the end of it all everyone holds up their hand in a fist and the leader that day says, “If it is too hard for everyone else…” and then everyone puts down their fist and says, “then it’s just right for us.” This hour is paid for by donors because we, and our supporters, truly believe this work cannot be done without God.

Throughout the work day, I do a variety of tasks that include but are not limited to: managing Will’s calendar, walking around town putting up signs for our new job opening, writing up radio announcements, managing the Gulu channel and posting updates on Slack, ordering more drinking water, editing photos, fixing the printer, talking with headquarters, proofreading Will’s documents, planning spiritual retreats, making plans for visitors and many other things. There are other days when I go out into the field and take photos of clients or court proceedings or breaking news. You could say I’m the office assistant, the photographer and the PR manager.

My boss, Will, is a visionary, he’s goofy and he’s unbelievably compassionate. He is inspiring and one of the coolest humans I have ever met.

After work, I head home to change and then run to the Bomah Hotel to workout. I get made fun of on my run—men catcalling, children running with me, and women laughing at me. It cracks me up every time I walk into the gym because I fist bump about 5 Ugandan men—my gym bros, if you will. The culture of the gym is very different from at home. The equipment is limited, so people get really creative. Knowledge about exercise and fitness is also limited, so everyone helps each other out. If I am struggling with a piece of equipment, someone will come and help spot me or show me a more efficient and creative way to use the equipment to work out the muscle I want to work out. Often I will do an exercise people have never seen and they will ask me to teach them. I like it. Like a gym family.

Bomah also has yoga every Saturday morning. A good amount of expats attend this class and they also have a pool that a lot of people hang out by. I also hear they have air-conditioned rooms. I haven’t been in one myself, but word on the street is that’s the place to go during dry season if you want a good night of sleep and an escape from the heat. The also have a sauna, which confuses me… it’s called Africa, the whole thing’s a sauna, but that’s none of my business.

There are about 4 restaurants here that we rotate between: Café LaRem, Elephante, Iron Donkey and Coffee Hut. These are geared towards westerners and have been deemed okay to eat at. Elephante and Iron Donkey deliver, which truly has changed our lives. When waiting for your food, at the restaurant or at home, you can wait anywhere between 1 hour and 2 and a half hours, so you can’t ever arrive hungry.

When I want to cook at home, the process can be quite intense. First, when I go grocery shopping, I have to go to about 6 different places. The market is where I get all of my fresh produce. There is a particular stand where I frequent and have befriended the owner. She even had kale once! And she has eggs with yellow yolks sometimes (unheard of here). Avocados are a main food here—they’re in everything and never cost extra! The sweet potatoes are white (didn’t know these existed) and aren’t nearly as good as the orange ones. My typical shopping list at the market is: eggs, yellow bananas, onions, garlic, zucchini, red peppers, and beets. You can buy yogurt, cheese and break at Iron Donkey. I buy my chicken at a place called Fresh Cuts. There are 3 Indian-owned grocery stores called Mega Shoppers, Pari and Grand Shoppers. Between these three, you can find more Western items like Heinz beans, ketchup, and mustard, spices, coconut cream, Quaker oats, Coke Zero (and Captain Morgan), cashews, and olive oil. The Coke Zero only comes in waves and my roommates always make fun of me because I stock up on it when it gets shipped in. It’s the closest thing to Diet Dr. Pepper that I have here. One time they had Oreos and this week they have Lay’s chips that have flavors like “American sour cream and onion” and “Indian spices”. Sometimes they have ice cream, which isn’t bad, but the wine and beer here are awful.

When you take your produce home, you have to put a Milton’s tablet or bleach into a large tub of clean water and let your produce soak for 15 minutes. You then must rinse with clean water (this is more complicated than it sounds). The process is exhaustive and time consuming. I typically can only buy in one day, clean in one day and then cook them the next day.

The Internet here is astronomically expensive and so unbelievably slow. Yes, this means no Netflix. But have no fear, there is a store where you can go and get pirated DVDs to watch on your computer (50/50 chance they will work).

I have a Ugandan phone and I pay for airtime as I need it. It’s a lot of fun when you finally are getting a Ugandan to understand your accent and what you are asking on the other line and then your phone or their phone cuts out because one of you ran out of airtime.

The healthcare here is terrible, so we have all decided that taking risks is a no here. Breaking your femur wouldn’t even be considered an emergency in this country and I’ve seen the hospitals and I don’t want to end up in one of them. The closest hospital that has been approved by the US military is in Nairobi. There are flights that will take you to Kampala if it is an emergency, though. Those hospitals are at least better than the ones here. There are also pharmacies where you can get pretty much any drug with no prescription because they aren’t regulated. You have to be careful though and make sure you get the British or Australian drugs because, well, they aren’t regulated.

To pay our electric and water bills, I have to go to the bank and sometimes stand in line for up to 3 hours while people cut in front of you. And, of course, no air conditioning. You have to pay over your bill because the minute you owe money they will come and turn off your electricity or water. I put a copy of the receipt at the guard stand, so the guards can prove we have paid. It can take up to 4 days to have them turn back on. We pay for people to pick up our trash and burn it for us. It smells like burning trash everywhere. We have house help that comes Monday and Friday to hand wash our clothes (all my clothes will be ruined by the end of this year), wash our dishes and clean our floors. We also have guards who help keep our compound clean and pretty and keep us safe. There has been a lot of drama with this as of recent. They will ask for our numbers, or ask for money, or not show up for work. We just fired one of our guards because he made us uncomfortable. I think we are finally getting a handle on it, though. I am in charge of the electric and water bills and clean drinking water, Tamara is in charge of the trash and our house help and Amanda is in charge of the guards.

The power goes out almost daily. We are having an intense solar energy system put in for safety reasons, so that will be exciting when it’s finished. The worst part is the Internet going out with the power as well as our fans… A night without a fan is extremely rough here. The solar can’t be connected to the fridge, though, because it is too powerful, so when the power goes out we have to move all perishable items to our deep freezer because this will stay colder longer.

Hot water is also not a guarantee, especially if the power goes out because the hot water heater goes out with it. The pressure isn’t high if you want warm water and you have to be careful to not accidentally drink the water because it isn’t clean. I’m not sure my hair will ever feel the same again.

So, there you have it. The new life of Tyler Miles.

"When one day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."

-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

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